Medical Cannabis Treatment and Insurance Companies

A judge made a decision in a New Jersey case that the insurance company must pay the cost of a man’s treatment regarding medical cannabis. This might set up an essential paragon in medicinal industry.

Medical Cannabis State’s program sponsored a person suffering from neuropathic chronic pain. He bought the medicinal cannabis in a duration of three months with the compensation given. Medicinal cannabis can treat a list of conditions but you must have one of those conditions to get such a treatment using medical cannabis.

A psychiatrist bore witness on this person’s behalf in court. He said that medicinal cannabis would help the person in reducing his prescribed opiate usage. This will help to decrease the threat of its addiction and harmful side effects. Keeping in view these benefits, the court decided that the person’s cannabis usage is justified to be medicinal and that the person’s insurance company should take care of his medicinal cannabis treatment. The documentations provided in these hearings depict that the postulant’s trial usage of cannabis is quite successful.

The court is very careful about the dispute regarding the use of cannabis as a medicine. It is necessary to make the right decision to prescribe cannabis for the patient. The judge realized that the person’s use of holistic medicine to relieve himself from the pain was much better than using opioid drugs. This hearing paved a way for more people to use the same approach.

Medical Cannabis for Chronic Pain

Medical cannabis is also prescribed instead of opioids, keeping in view the number of deaths caused by them. Opioid drugs including hydrocodone (Vicodin), oxycodone and methadone have nearly caused 183,000 deaths in the last two decades. In the US, the abuse, addiction and misuse of opioids is unchecked and a large population of US was depending upon prescribed opioid drugs.

Since the start of this year, as many as 28 states has legalized medical cannabis. There has been a great shift from prescription drugs to marijuana by both patients and doctors. Cannabis for chronic pain is more useful than opioid drugs as opioid drugs cause addiction and their overdose leads to death. Medicinal marijuana can be useful for both insurance companies and patients because this treatment would not cost as much as other pharmaceutical options. In this way, the decision of the court was a win-win condition for the patients as well as the insurance companies.

This hearing was the first of its kind to state whether insurer must pay for cannabis treatment or not. It is indeed an important verdict. A few years ago, a Mexican court decided that an injured worker is eligible for cannabis treatment. In such conditions, marijuana is necessary as other methods of treatment may not be effective in relieving pain. The decision is further strengthen when the use of opioids such as Percocet increases the danger of addiction and over usage may lead to death.